Response to the Virginia Tech crisis

TNN|

Apr 24, 2007, 12.05 AM IST

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The massacre at Virginia Tech last week has been a traumatic experience for Indian students, who form the largest numbers of foreigners on US campuses. While in 2006, the US issued visas to 24,600 Indian students, Virginia Tech is among the most popular US colleges for Indian engineering students. Vijaya Khandavilli, country co-ordinator for educational advising services at the US Educational Foundation in India, said that at last count there were about 500 Indian students on the campus.

"During the last term, about 380 students from India enrolled for graduate courses at Virginia Tech while another 30 enrolled for undergrad courses. The college is undoubtedly one of the top destinations for students from India," Ms Khandavilli told ET.

The entire Indian American community in Virginia and the Washington DC region too, is in a state of shock over the massacre. "It is a great shock for us that Virginia Tech, which is among the best known colleges imparting cutting edge education to the best and brightest young minds from around the world, should face such a crises. We are all supporting the Indian American students and professors in their trauma," Vivek Kundra, assistant secretary of commerce and trade at the Virginia Governor's office, told ET. And though Governor Timothy Kaine, who was leading a trade mission to India from his state this week, has cancelled his visit, representatives from Virginia Tech and other educational institutions are currently here as part of the mission.

Indian entrepreneurs in the region have come out in support of the academic community at the campus in a big way. "We often have students from Virginia Tech joining us for their projects and also hire on campus. The large community of Indian entrepreneurs in the Washington DC area have close ties with tech schools in the region and we are all very saddened by this loss of innocent lives," said Reggie Aggarwal, the CEO and founder of Cvent and a prominent Indian entrepreneur.

While the entire academic community at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, too, held an interfaith ceremony of healing and reflection, in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre, representatives of the Indian community feel that in the days to come, Indians across US should work on a common response to the Virginia Tech crisis. Said Dr Mriganka Sur, head of the department of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT: "This terrible tragedy has an extraordinary and disproportionate impact on the Indian community due to the high representation of Indian faculty and students in engineering departments in US universities. Unfortunately there has been no widespread and inclusive response from the Indian community as yet."

Meanwhile, the Indian Students Association (ISA) at Virginia Tech, which is a chapter of the organisation with branches across American campuses, has been helping the community to cope with their shock and trauma. "Officials from the Indian High Commission at Washington DC are constantly in touch with us and the local Indian American community too is reaching out to those of us who are on campus," Dr. Kumar Mallikarjunan, associate professor, biological systems engineering at Virginia Tech, who is also the faculty advisor for ISA, said. There are about 30 faculty members of Indian origin on campus.

The US India Political Action Committee (USINPAC) has started networking with the ISA chapters across American campuses to come up with a joint response in the weeks ahead. "We are in touch with representatives of Indian students and professors on campuses with a large number of Indians such as Stanford, Purdue, MIT, Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech and Harvard. In the weeks ahead, we hope to approach the US Congress through USINPAC's youth outreach committee to make available more funds for the safety and security on campuses. Besides there was obviously a communications failure at Virginia Tech which should be addressed. Large campuses would need more funds to develop better communications networks," said Sanjay Puri, executive director, USINPAC.

The ISA, which prides itself on being the largest Indian students group on US campuses, now finds itself taking on a much larger role. "We are trying to help each other and also to send the message back home to those students who are planning to come to join courses here that the campus has always been very friendly for students from India. What happened last week was a stray incident. ISA is helping the Indian community on campus to cope," said Amit Chandra Agarwal, an MS student at Virginia Tech, and former vice-president of ISA.